IBM today revealed it is adding IBM z17 and IBM LinuxONE 5 configurations to its portfolio, including rack-mounted systems that can plug easily into an existing data center environment.
The new IBM z17 and IBM LinuxONE 5 configurations support up to 82 cores and 18 TB of memory across two processor drawers, representing about a 20% increase in core count and a 12% increase in memory capacity.
Tina Tarquinio, chief product officer for IBM z and LinuxOne, said these additions to the IBM mainframe portfolio provide IT teams with an opportunity to reduce their IT infrastructure footprint using platforms that can be easily deployed within an existing data center.
The IBM z17 single frame is based on an IBM rack that comes pre-configured with intelligent power distribution units (iPDUs), while the IBM z17 rack mount allows IT teams to, for the first time, install an IBM Z mainframe within their own existing racks. The IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper 5 mainframe, meanwhile, can be mounted in an 18U rack. That latter platform is crucial to further accelerating the deployment of additional Linux workloads on the mainframe, noted Tarquinio.
Additionally, IBM is adding IBM Infrastructure Management for Z and LinuxONE, a suite of graphical infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools for provisioning mainframes much like a cloud service. IBM also added IBM COBOL Elevate for z/OS to better optimize applications.
Finally, IBM is making post-quantum cryptography (PQC) security standard on z17 and LinuxONE Rockhopper 5 systems along with IBM Crypto Discovery & Inventory capabilities that provide a consolidated view of an organization’s cryptographic posture.
IBM, as always, is making a case for consolidating workloads on mainframe platforms that reduce the total cost of IT. Pricing for the LinuxOne platform, for example, starts at $165,000.
As the cost of acquiring mainframe platforms continues to decline, the number of IT organizations that have the financial resources needed to adopt a mainframe has steadily increased. IBM last April revealed it has allied with Arm to develop dual-architecture enterprise platforms that enable Arm-based workloads to run on IBM Z systems.
At the beginning of this year, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna also noted that IBM’s Z mainframe business has achieved the highest annual revenue with its latest generation for the past 20 years, with IBM Z revenue increasing 67% year over year. IBM also noted the z17 cycle has shipped more than 100% growth in new MIPS for four consecutive quarters and that first-year z17 hardware placement value exceeded the prior program by more than $1.0 billion.
It remains to be seen to what degree IBM can maintain the momentum, but IBM recently also noted that 87% of all transactions in the world are processed on mainframes.
Given that footprint, it’s all but certain that after six decades since the initial launch, the IBM mainframe will continue to remain relevant through the end of this decade and beyond. The only thing that remains to be seen is which software stack available for the mainframe will be the most dominant a few short years from now.
